Charging in Warhammer 40,000 is how you get your units into close combat to use all those awesome looking exotic combat weapons to hack, slash and otherwise obliterate enemy units.

The basic mechanics of this phase are very similar to how they work now. You can select any unit with 12″ as the target of your charge, and your units will move towards them 2D6″.

Enemy units still have a chance to hit the charging unit with overwatch, provided that they are not already in combat. Just as in the current edition, overwatch is a hit on a flat 6 – all pretty familiar so far.

In the current Warhammer 40,000, you need to reach base contact. In the new edition, though, you only need to come within 1″ of an enemy, which in practice means that compared to the current charge range, you get an extra inch.

You also can’t move within 1″ of an enemy you didn’t declare as the target of your charge, so if you want to engage multiple units, you’ll need to brave the overwatch fire of all of them. Overwatch can also be fired multiple times per phase, but as soon as the unit is engaged, they will no longer be able to fire back.

So, the Charge phase keeps most of its current mechanics, with only minor amends.

This phase will be very familiar to anyone who plays today, but there have been a few tweaks and improvements to the rules.

We’ve already seen the profiles of our miniatures, so we know that we’ll be hitting on a fixed Ballistic Skill (a bit like you do now) and we’ve also seen a little about how weapons work – multiple damage from powerful weapons, and armour save modifiers, for example. Today, we look at some of the other rules of the phase.

When you select a unit to shoot, much like today, they can all fire their weapons at the enemy. You can’t shoot, however, if you Advanced this turn, or if you fell back from combat. (See our movement article for details on these.)

You also can’t shoot if there is an enemy with 1″ of you. The exception to this rule is pistols. Models with these hand-held firearms can shoot at the closest enemy target in the Shooting phase, even if they themselves are locked in combat! This is going to make characters with pistols incredibly deadly up-close.

When picking a target, you won’t be able to shoot enemies that are in combat with other units, much like the current edition. However, you can fall back from combat in your Movement phase, allowing other units to fire at your opponent at the expense of your own actions this turn. Expect to see cunning generals deploying their armies in waves to take full advantage of this.

Heavy weapons are worth talking about too. These no longer snap fire if you move, and instead they have a flat -1 to hit modifier for moving units. This applies to all models with heavy weapons, vehicles included. There are a few other factors that affect hit rolls too – smoke launchers on a vehicle, for example, have the same effect of -1 to hit.

The last big change we’re going over today is cover. Currently, cover saves give a blanket save to all units, and one that only comes into effect if the shot would otherwise ignore their armour. In the new Warhammer 40,000, cover is a bonus to your armour save. Critically, this ability often only applies to certain types of unit. For example, only Infantry gain the bonus of cover from a crater.

This interaction works quite nicely with the modifiers to armour saves of certain guns, and means that when someone is trying to hide behind a wall or barricade, if your weapon has a high enough armour penetration, you can shoot them through a wall!

There are also a few weapons that ignore this bonus cover to armour effect – such as those wielded by Chaos Noise Marines and a Leman Russ’ nova cannon.

There you have it – a few of the changes you can look forward to in the Shooting phase.

Each time you pick a psyker, you can cast as many spells as their datasheet states (which would previously be the same as their Mastery Level) and there’s a simpler, two-dice mechanic for casting, you just need to beat the warp charge value. The more potent the power, the harder it will be to cast.

Enemy psykers will then have a chance to block these powers if they are within 24″, and again, the mastery of the psyker will dictate how often they can block a power each turn.

The new system is much more scalable – meaning that the phase works well at any size of game, with any number of psykers running around.

Perils of the Warp is still there of course. It wouldn’t be Warhammer 40,000 without the chance of accidentally having your mind eaten by a Daemon and your soul sucked into the psychic oblivion of the Warp while your body exploded in a multifaceted explosion of etheric ichor…

Every faction will have its own psychic lore with a range of thematic powers. In addition, every psyker knows the Smite power:

it's weapons day
Another reveal by GW : https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/04/26/warhammer-40000-weapons/

Damage is a big change. This stats effectively lets a single hit deliver multiple wounds to one model. So, as we can see, the bolter does a single would per hit, and so is optimised for shooting models that have a single wound themselves, whereas the lascannon, one of the most powerful man-portable weapons in the game, kicks out D6 damage, allowing it to blast chunks off large vehicles and monsters and kill light vehicles and characters in a single hit. Against something like Guardsmen or Orks though, this formidable damage output will be wasted.

The AP system is changing too. Rather than a binary yes/no on saves, the new Warhammer 40,000 uses modifiers – the lascannon will punch easily through power armour, while the bolter and flamer are, again, best deployed against less durable, more numerous targets.

Lastly, you can see that the flamer no longer uses a template. However, when in range, it causes D6 hits that do not have to roll to hit, and this applies even against units of a single model – this can be devastating, especially when used in large numbers , trust us when we say we may be entering the age of the flamer as the go-to special weapon of infantry squads the galaxy over – let the galaxy burn!

The rules team behind the new game have taken the opportunity to rebalance a lot of the weapons in the game, and with the new armour modifier system and removal of the cap of 10 on Strength values, we’ve made sure that every weapon has its use on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. D weapons, for example, are gone, and instead there is a scalable Strength and damage that matches the effectiveness you’d expect from every weapon.

-Melee is by activation (like aos) So Charger hit first then each side activate a unit to attack.
(I am not sure it needed the extra strike first after charge rule with the alternate activation from AOS. But do they have the 3" pile in move ?)

-Flyer rules are on the unit having them,so different flying rules are entirely possible.
(I like it !)

-Legion and chapter traits are still there.

-Guard will have platoon (and by extension command and comms).

-Cover is like AOS

-No D weapon

-No shooting in/out melee

-Digital and phyisical book (A LOT are printed so no shortage)

-WW exclusive commands tanks are getting rules.

-Chaos and Imperium are similar to grand alliance book but xenos are more granular.